Wednesday, July 19, 2017

Hall signs with Thunderbolts

Brockport Athletics offers this excellent write-up about Rob Hall...

Rob Hall,
who served as an assistant captain on The College at Brockport ice
hockey team during the 2016-17 season, is continuing his playing career
at the professional level. He'll be playing with the Evansville
Thunderbolts of the Southern Professional Hockey League (SPHL) during
the 2017-18 campaign.

Directly following the conclusion of Brockport's season, Hall knew that
he wasn't ready to hang up his skates, so he made a push to land himself
a roster spot on a professional team.

"As soon as our season ended I reached out to an advisor from back home
and asked him if he knew of any teams looking for a defenseman,"
recalled Hall. "He got me in touch with the coach, and I was able to get
right down there and actually played the last 11 games of their
season."

One of his teammates for those 11 games was fellow Brockport graduate
Chase Nieuwendyk, who played the entire season in the SPHL after
graduating in 2016. Nieuwendyk adjusted quickly to the league, recording
15 points (seven goals, eight assists) across 40 games in his rookie
season.

Hall also acclimated quickly to the league, dishing out three assists in
his short stint with Evansville in 2016. He did, however, acknowledge
that there was a definite change in level of play.

"The guys are a little bit bigger, faster, stronger, but really the
speed of the game wasn't too different to what I was used to at
Brockport," said Hall. "The biggest adjustment was the smarts; all the
guys have really high hockey IQ and just know where to go without the
puck."

One of the things that helped him prepare for that transition was his
off-season training. Hall, who grew up in Schaumburg, Ill., has been
training with professional hockey players for a number of years now.

"One of my best friends from back home plays in the ECHL [East Coast
Hockey League], and has played in the AHL [American Hockey League] in
the past," remarked Hall. "Whenever I go home I train with him and some
other guys from that level, so it was definitely helpful having played
with guys that speed and size before."

That extensive training certainly paid off for Hall, as his performance
in the final few games of the Thunderbolts season earned him an invite
back for 2017-18. Although a huge achievement in itself, Hall has even
loftier goals for himself going forward.

"The next level up from the SPHL is the ECHL, but my ultimate goal is to
keep climbing and just see how far I can go," said Hall.

He'll start chasing that goal on October 21, when the Thunderbolts open
regular season play with a home matchup against the Peoria Rivermen.

The Brockport Golden Eagles

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